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Encyclopedia > Accusative case
Grammatical cases
List of grammatical cases
Abessive case
Ablative case
Absolutive case
Accusative case
Adessive case
Adverbial case
Allative case
Antessive case
Aversive case
Benefactive case
Caritive case
Causal case
Causal-final case
Comitative case
Dative case
Delative case
Direct case
Distantitive case
Distributive case
Distributive-temporal case
Dubitive case
Elative case
Essive case
Essive-formal case
Essive-modal case
Equative case
Evitative case
Excessive case
Final case
Formal case
Genitive case
Illative case
Inessive case
Instructive case
Instrumental case
Lative case
Locative case
Medial case
Modal case
Multiplicative case
Nominative case
Oblique case
Objective case
Partitive case
Perlative case
Postessive case
Possessive case
Postpositional case
Prepositional case
Privative case
Prolative case
Prosecutive case
Proximative case
Separative case
Sociative case
Subessive case
Sublative case
Superessive case
Superlative case
Temporal case
Terminative case
Translative case
Vialis case
Vocative case
Morphosyntactic alignment
Absolutive case
Accusative case
Ergative case
Instrumental case
Instrumental-comitative case
Intransitive case
Nominative case
Pegative case
Declension
Czech declension
English declension
German declension
Latin declension
Slovak declension
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The accusative case (abbreviated ACC) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of (some or all) prepositions. This is a list of grammatical cases as they are used by various inflectional languages that have declension. ... In linguistics, abessive (abbreviated ABESS, from Latin abesse to be distant), caritive and privative (abbreviated PRIV) are names for a grammatical case expressing the lack or absence of the marked noun. ... For the physical process, see ablation. ... In ergative-absolutive languages, the absolutive is the grammatical case used to mark both the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb. ... In the Finnish language, Estonian language and Hungarian language the adessive case (from Latin adesse to be present) is the fourth of the locative cases with the basic meaning of on. For example, Estonian laud (table) and laual (on the table), Hungarian asztal and asztalon (on the table). ... The adverbial case is a noun case in the Abkhaz language and Georgian language that has function similar to the translative and essive cases. ... In the Finnish language, the Allative case is the fifth of the locative cases, with the basic meaning of onto. Its ending is -lle, for example pöytä (table) and pöydälle (onto the top of the table). ... The aversive case is a grammatical case found in Australian languages that indicates that the marked noun is avoided or feared. ... The benefactive case is a case used where English would use for, for the benefit of, or intended for. ... In linguistics, abessive (abbreviated ABESS, from Latin abesse to be distant), caritive and privative (abbreviated PRIV) are names for a grammatical case expressing the lack or absence of the marked noun. ... The causal or causative case (abbreviated CAUS) is a grammatical case that indicates that the marked noun is the cause or reason for something. ... This case in Hungarian language combines the Causal case and the Final case: it can express the cause of emotions (eg. ... The Comitative case is used where English would use in company with or together with. It, and many other cases, are found in the Finnish language, the Hungarian language, and the Estonian language. ... The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. ... The delative case (from Latin deferre to bear or bring away or down) in the Hungarian language can originally express the movement from the surface of something (eg. ... In Indo-Aryan languages, the direct case is the name given to a grammatical case used with all three core relations: the agent of transitive verbs, the patient of transitive verbs, and the experiencer of intransitive verbs. ... This case in Hungarian language can express the manner when something happens to each member of a set one by one (eg. ... This case in Hungarian language can express how often something happens (eg. ... See Elative for disambiguation. ... The essive or similaris case carries the meaning of a temporary state of being, often equivalent to the English as a. ... In Hungarian language this case combines the Essive case and the Formal case, and it can express the position, task, state (eg. ... This case in Hungarian language can express the state, capacity, task in which somebody is or which somebody has (Essive case, eg. ... Equative is a case with the meaning of comparison, or likening. ... The aversive case is a grammatical case found in Australian languages that indicates that the marked noun is avoided or feared. ... The excessive case is a grammatical case, which denotes a transition away from a state. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Possessive case. ... Illative case in the Finno-Ugric languages Illative (from Latin inferre to bring in) is, in the Finnish language, Estonian language and the Hungarian language, the third of the locative cases with the basic meaning of into (the inside of). An example from Hungarian would be a házba (into... Inessive case (from Latin inesse to be in or at) is a locative grammatical case. ... In the Finnish language, the instructive case has the basic meaning of by means of. It is a comparatively rarely used case, though it is found in some commonly used expressions, such as omin silmin -> with ones own eyes. In modern Finnish, many of its instrumental uses are being... In linguistics, the instrumental case (also called the eighth case) indicates that a noun is the instrument or means by which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action. ... Lative is a case which indicates motion to a location. ... Locative is a case which indicates a location. ... In linguistics,the Modal case is a grammatical case used to express ability, intention, necessity, obligation, permission, possibility, etc. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ... An oblique case (Latin: ) in linguistics is a noun case of analytic languages that is used generally when a noun is the predicate of a sentence or a preposition. ... The accusative case of a noun is, generally, the case used to mark the direct object of a verb. ... The basic meaning of the Partitive case is partialness, without result or without specifying identity. In the Finnish language, its used to express unknown identities and irresultative actions. ... Possessive case is a case that exists in some languages used for possession. ... In a passive sentence, when we want to say when or where something happens, we use a phrase that asks for details about the action. ... Prepositional case is a grammatical case that marks prepositions. ... In linguistics, abessive (abbreviated ABESS, from Latin abesse to be distant), caritive and privative (abbreviated PRIV) are names for a grammatical case expressing the lack or absence of the marked noun. ... The prolative case is a declension of a noun or pronoun that has the basic meaning of by way of. The prolative is widely used in Estonian. ... The prosecutive case is a declension found in Tundra Nenets language. ... This case in Hungarian language can express the person in whose company (cf. ... The subessive case is a case indicating location under or below. ... This case in Hungarian language can express the destination of the movement, originally to the surface of something (eg. ... The Superessive case is a grammatical declension indicating location on top of something. ... In grammar, nouns in the superlative case typically denote objects over which or onto the top of which another object moves (movement over or onto the top of is important here). ... The temporal case in morphology is used to indicate a time. ... In morphology, the terminative case is a case that indicates to what point; where something ends. ... This declension (case) indicates a change in state of a noun, with the general sense of becoming X or change to X. In the Finnish language, this is the counterpart of the Essive case, with the basic meaning of a change of state. ... The vialis case is found in Eskimo languages. ... The vocative case (also called the fifth case) is the case used for a noun identifying the person (animal, object, etc. ... In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish between the arguments of transitive verbs and intransitive verbs. ... In ergative-absolutive languages, the absolutive is the grammatical case used to mark both the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb. ... In ergative-absolutive languages, the ergative case identifies the subject of a transitive verb. ... In linguistics, the instrumental case (also called the eighth case) indicates that a noun is the instrument or means by which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action. ... This case in Hungarian language contains the Instrumental case and the Comitative case at the same time. ... The tone of this article is inappropriate for an encyclopedia article. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ... In linguistics, the Pegative case is used for a case marking that a noun is an agent of an action that has a dative-like undergoer argument. ... In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns and adjectives to indicate such features as number (typically singular vs. ... Czech declension describes the declension, or system of grammatically-determined modifications, in nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numerals in the Czech language. ... The English language once had an extensive declension system similar to modern German or Icelandic. ... German declension is the declensional system of the German language. ... Latin is an inflected language, and as such its nouns, pronouns, and adjectives must be declined in order to serve a grammatical function. ... See also: Slovak language. ... An abbreviation (from Latin brevis short) is a shortened form of a word or phrase. ... In English, a noun or noun substantive is a lexical category which can co-occur with (in)definite articles and attributive adjectives, and function as the head of a noun phrase. ... In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject, of direct object, or of possessor. ... The accusative case of a noun is, generally, the case used to mark the direct object of a verb. ... A transitive verb is a verb that requires both a subject and one or more objects. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with adposition. ...


The accusative case exists (or existed once) in all the Indo-European languages (including Latin, Sanskrit, Greek, German, Russian), in the Finno-Ugric languages, and in Semitic languages (such as Arabic). It should be noted that Balto-Fennic languages such as Finnish and Estonian have two cases to mark objects, the accusative and the partitive case. In morphosyntactic alignment terms, both perform the accusative function, but the accusative object is telic, while the partitive is not. The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred related languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, the Americas as well as many spoken in the Indian subcontinent (South Asia), the Iranian plateau (Southwest Asia), and Central Asia. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... The Sanskrit language ( , for short ) is an old Indo-Aryan language from the Indian Subcontinent, the classical literary language of the Hindus of India[1], a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ... Approximate geographical distribution of areas where indigenous Finno-Ugric languages are spoken. ... 14th century BC diplomatic letter in Akkadian, found in Tell Amarna. ... Arabic ( or just ), is the largest member of the family of Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family (classification: South Central Semitic) and is closely related to Hebrew, Amharic, and Aramaic. ... Balto-Fennic languages are a subgroup of Finno-Ugric languages, spoken around the Baltic Sea by about 6 million people. ... The basic meaning of the Partitive case is partialness, without result or without specifying identity. In the Finnish language, its used to express unknown identities and irresultative actions. ... Telicity or telic aspect is a verb aspect, indicating a reached goal or action completed as intended. ...


Modern English, which almost entirely lacks declension in its nouns, still has an explicitly marked accusative case in a few pronouns as a remnant of Old English, an earlier declined form of the language. "Whom" is the accusative case of "who"; "him" is the accusative case of "he"; and "her" is the accusative case of "she". These words also serve as the dative case pronouns in English and could arguably be classified in the oblique case instead. Most modern English grammarians feel that due to the lack of declension except in a few pronouns, where accusative and dative have been merged, that making case distinctions in English is no longer relevant, and frequently employ the term "objective case" instead (see Declension in English). The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns and adjectives to indicate such features as number (typically singular vs. ... Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) is an early form of the English language that was spoken in parts of what is now England and southern Scotland between the mid-fifth century and the mid-twelfth century. ... The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. ... An oblique case (Latin: ) in linguistics is a noun case of analytic languages that is used generally when a noun is the predicate of a sentence or a preposition. ... An objective pronoun functions as the target of a verb, as distinguished from a subjective pronoun, which is the initiator of a verb. ... The English language once had an extensive declension system similar to modern German or Icelandic. ...

Contents

Example

In the sentence I see the car, the noun phrase the car is the direct object of the verb "see". In English, which has mostly lost the case system, the definite article and noun — "the car" — remain in the same form regardless of the grammatical role played by the words. One can correctly use "the car" as the subject of a sentence also: "The car is parked here." In linguistics, a noun phrase is a phrase whose Head is a noun. ...


In a declined language, the morphology of the article and/or noun changes in some way according to the grammatical role played by the noun in a given sentence. For example, in German, one possible translation of "the car" is der Wagen. This is the form in nominative case, used for the subject of a sentence. If this article/noun pair is used as the object of a verb, it (usually) changes to the accusative case, which entails an article shift in German — Ich sehe den Wagen. In German, masculine nouns change their definite article from der to den in accusative case. For other uses, see Morphology. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ...

See also: Morphosyntactic alignment

In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish between the arguments of transitive verbs and intransitive verbs. ...

The accusative case in Latin

Nouns in the accusative case (Accusativus) can be used

  • as a direct object.
  • to indicate duration of time. E.g. multos annos, "for many years"; ducentos annos, "for 200 years." This is known as the accusative of duration of time.
  • to indicate direction towards which. E.g. domum, "homewards"; Romam, "to Rome" with no preposition needed. This is known as the accusative of place to which.
  • in indirect statements.

For the accusative endings, see Latin declensions. An object in grammar is a sentence element and part of the sentence predicate. ... In grammar, accusative and infinitive is the name for a syntactic construction of Latin and Greek, also found in various forms in other languages such as English and Spanish. ... Latin, like all other ancient Indo-European languages, is highly inflectional, which allows for very flexible word order. ...


The accusative case in German

The accusative case is used for the direct object in a sentence. The masculine forms for German articles, e.g. 'the', 'a', 'my', etc. change in the accusative case: they always end in -en. The feminine, neuter and plural forms don't change. Some German pronouns also change in the accusative case. German articles have a feature called strength, which influences the declension of the adjectives. ... German Pronouns of the first person refer to the speaker; those of the second person refer to an addressed person. ...


A small number of verbs in German require two direct objects, e. g. "lehren" (to teach) and "kosten" (to cost). The first noun phrase in the accusative case determines the target/direction of the action and the second indicates the object by which the target of the action is affected. For example:

  • Ich lehre dich die deutsche Sprache (lit.: I teach you the German language) where both dich as well as die deutsche Sprache stand in the accusative case. (Colloquially, some people put the first object into the dative case, but this is grammatically wrong.)

The accusative case is also used after a number of German prepositions. These include bis, durch, für, gegen, ohne, um, after which the accusative case is always used, and an, auf, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor, zwischen which can take either the accusative or the dative. The latter prepositions take the accusative when motion (towards something) is specified, but take the dative when location (staying within the same area) is specified. These prepositions are also used in conjunction with certain verbs, in which case it is the verb in question which governs whether the accusative or dative should be used.


The accusative case in Russian

In Russian, accusative is used not only to display the direct object of an action, but also to indicate the destination or goal of motion. No prepositions necessarily take accusative, although в and на can both take accusative in situations where they are indicating the goal of a motion.


The accusative case in Esperanto

Esperanto has only two cases, a nominative, and an accusative, which acts generally as the case of direct objects. Accusative is formed with the addition of -n to the nominative form, and is used expressly for direct objects. All other objective functions, including dative functions and the indication of the direction of motion, are achieved with prepositions and word order.


See also

Nota accusativi (Latin for signal of the accusative (case)) is a grammatical term meaning denoting accusative case. It generally is applied to linguistic indicators of the accusative case, such as the use of the prefix et in Hebrew, for nouns in the accusative, which are indicated by use of the...

External links

  • Accusative Case In Russian

  Results from FactBites:
 
Accusative case - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (536 words)
The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a verb.
The accusative case exists (or existed once) in all the Indo-European languages (including Latin, Sanskrit, Greek, German, Russian), in the Finno-Ugric languages, and in Semitic languages (such as Arabic).
"Whom" is the accusative case of "who"; "him" is the accusative case of "he" (the final "m" of both of these words can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European accusative case suffix); and "her" is the accusative case of "she".
ACCUSATIVE (806 words)
The accusative case is used for the direct object of transitive verbs, for the internal object (mostly of intransitive verbs), for the subject of a subordinate infinitive (that is, not as the subject of the historical infinitive), to indicate place to which, extent or duration, and for the object of certain prepositions.
It is believed that the accusative case originally had a "local" function; it was the case that indicated the end or ultimate goal of an action or movement.
The Cognate Accusative is the easiest form of the internal accusative to identify; it is called a "cognate accusative" because the noun in the accusative case uses a same linguistic stem or root as (in other words, it is cognate with) the stem or root of the verb.
  More results at FactBites »


 

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